Downtown Gets Fit

Gone are the halcyon days of matching T's and shorts for the guys and coordinating leotards and leg-warmers for the girls. Dwindling are the big-box mega-gyms set in shopping malls with hard-sell membership plans, tanning beds and a population of dudes grunting and clanging weights in the weight room. In fact, some gyms are designed to discourage that kind of behavior entirely. Why? Because the market has changed, and today Ann Arbor is supporting what appears to be a growing number of fitness alternatives.

Jump-roping to a whole new beat

The thriving alternatives to the traditional gym are unique, not just in comparison to warehouse workout spaces like Bally Total Fitness and Lifetime Fitness, but from each other. Not only does each one has its own focus, method and personality; specializing in one or two areas --Bikram Yoga for example, or Pilates-- but these alternative spaces tend to be located downtown or in high traffic areas, serving and uniting people within the community. 

Heather Depuis, owner of Vie Fitness, a private health club in downtown Ann Arbor, has the items you'd expect to find in a typical gym: exercise balls, bicycles, ellipticals and attractive young personal trainers, yet Depuis trades on offering her clients a lot more. 

“Our whole mission is creating a home away from home," says Depuis.  “We want to create a Third Place, a place where people can go and relax or workout." 

Part of Depuis's vision involves the setting and environment she creates for visitors.  Indeed, she believes that the centralized, downtown location and historic building Vie calls home contribute to a client's experience, creating a space that has both personality and resonance.

“It was downtown or nothing," says Depuis.

Some of her investors were initially put off by the perceived challenges of an urban setting: after all, wouldn't parking be more difficult? Would there be crime or high traffic? 

So far, five years after opening, Depuis hasn't noticed any lost business. One reason may be that the challenges were exaggerated: after all, Vie has two nearby parking lots on Ashley Street. Although Depuis herself walks to work, most of her customers are commuters. Commuters can be encouraged by environment, and downtown boasts a slew of attractive dining and entertainment options nearby.

And let's face it - this type of club isn't about ease of parking – otherwise it would be located in a strip mall.  It's also not about getting the lowest price. According to Depuis, the urban boutique gym offers personalized service, more instruction and attention, and less human congestion than its larger counterparts. 

Indeed, 75 per cent of Vie's thriving business is in one-on-one personal training (at between $50-$70 a session) with active clients averaging 1.5 sessions a week. An every-day membership at Bally Total Fitness or One on One Athletic Club might run you between $40 and $60 a month but without personal training or special classes. And, of course, there are the hundreds of users who flood these gyms during prime time.

While Vie offsets the cost of gym attendance by allowing its regular attendees- those currently signed up for personal training on an at least a weekly basis, to use its cardio equipment for no additional cost, it is not for those looking for extended hours at the gym.

“If you aren't looking for customer service, motivation and training – in short if you are okay working out entirely on your own – then you might be satisfied with a traditional gym," explains Depuis.

In addition to spinning classes, personal training, yoga and the expertise of a nutritionist, Vie offers something else to set it apart. It pampers customers with a gleaming raw-juice bar, a decidedly non-gym-like locker room, and a line of chi-chi retail products ranging from clothing to toiletries and candles, the purchase of which could feed you for a week (or a day at Whole Foods). You can indulge in a mani/pedicure or facial. 

Specialty Studios and Schools

The Ann Arbor School of Yoga, owned by teacher and long-time downtown-Ann Arbor resident, Laurie Blakeney, focuses exclusively on the practice and study of BKS Iyengar yoga. Its downtown setting, though it draws quite a bit of business, was a personal decision for Blakeney who has always strived to  maintain her pedestrian lifestyle.

The building the school occupies, once a church, later a men's shelter, now converted to a flawless yoga studio --offers a unique atmosphere for attendees.  Classes are offered in “semesters;" there is a library and reading room on the ground floor; open practice sessions are available throughout the week. The atmosphere attracts everything from teens to local professionals who have a desire to work under Blakeney, a student of Shri BKS Iyengar since 1971. Blakeney's additional offerings include an annual yoga retreat in Mexico, and some retail items like T-shirts and books sold in the studio itself.

“Not having other disciplines competing for the space allows my students to focus on the practice and study of yoga," says Blakeney.
   
The downtown shift in fitness isn't only about “small is better." 

Across the street from Blakeney and the Ann Arbor School of Yoga, a decidedly un-boutique-like establishment has turned downtown into a major fitness attraction. Fully integrated with the community since its founding decades ago, the Ann Arbor YMCA  offers cutting edge classes like dance, martial arts, yoga, Pilates and spinning in intimate studios that make the huge gym-facility more palatable to those seeking personalized attention.

According to marketing director Marcia Luke-van Dijk, the decision to keep the YMCA downtown was a practical one: mainly to keep the organization accessible to bike and foot traffic as well as bus lines.  

“We see the YMCA as more of a community organization than a fitness club," she explains.  Of the YMCA's seeming ability to keep up with the offerings of specialized boutiques, she points out that “The community came together to produce the YMCA, and that organization exists to offer the programs that the community is seeking."

She refers to the YMCA's various group programs like those for senior citizens, teens, cancer-survivors, runners, and others that have identified and filled a community need. There are trainers and camps and even marathon running groups, fostering a 'scene' that appeals to both families and professional singles.

Of its human-sized studios Luke-van Dijk says, “We really try to make an effort to get people introduced to each other, we want to give them the idea that if they don't show up, someone cares." 

The result has been a growing "Y" culture that encompasses over 150 classes and nearly 7000 memberships. Almost 80 per cent of its members come from Ann Arbor proper and half a dozen downtown businesses even offer sponsored memberships to their employees.

Further afield

A few blocks away from downtown on State Street and Eisenhower another boutique studio is flourishing – despite nearby would-be competitors, Bally Total Fitness and One On One. 
Intelligent Exercise Pilates and Fitness owner Melissa Francis founded this little studio in order to offer small classes and personal training based primarily on Pilates. Each session is tailored to the individual's goals and physical needs, to maximize what she calls “results."

While it's not downtown, the environment in which Francis has based her business – there is a small stream running through the center of the building – contributes to the experience of relaxation and her mission to help “increase flexibility, strength, coordination and body awareness."  Simliar to Vie, her offerings go beyond simple exercise: there is cranial sacral massage nearby, a steam room, and other amenities available onsite.

And though she misses out on the type of foot traffic that Vie, the YMCA and The Ann Arbor School of Yoga get, Francis has no shortage of clients.  She is currently in the process of seeking an additional trainer to support increasing client volume.  Her business is almost entirely referral based, and the referrals keep rolling in, proving that there is a market for the private gym, the appointment-based fitness structure, and the personalized attention and mind-body-soul focus afforded by such a business.

“My clients are very loyal," Francis explains.  “They call our work 'preventative medicine'."  

Francis' gym also demonstrates that the move toward more personal training is even taking hold in strip mall fitness spaces. The newly opened Joust Strength + Fitness, just south of the Briarwood Mall, and Coach Me Fit on Washtenaw Avenue offer personalized training that strategize with the client for the best path to fitness.

A look at the traditional payment structure of larger gyms reveals a traditional month-to-month membership commitment model. Boutique gyms are shifting away from scheduled payments and weighty start-up fees, resulting in a more service-based structure.  The onus falls on the boutique to constantly work to retain clients through quality of environment, amenities and customer service. Perhaps the rising number (and presumably popularity) of boutique gyms and boutique-gym-like services can be attributed to a lack of long-term financial commitment.  Perhaps it can be attributed ot the better service. 

Or perhaps it's the personal touch.  After all, there's both personal vision and individual spirit motivating these places, something you'd never find at a Bally's. According to Depuis, Vie is the way it is and where it is because that's what she desires in a workout space.  “Everything I brought to Vie is something I want for myself and I hope others agree," she says.   

Ann Arborites are certainly supporting micro-gyms and tiny studios where they can choose to avoid the jostle of traditional gyms, where they can reconnect with the community – but what is the future?  Depuis of Vie hopes to convert her downtown roof into a sunrise and sunset yoga studio.  Francis of Intelligent Exercise would like to keep growing and expand her series of instructional Pilates videos. The Y pledges to continue seeking and satisfying community needs, and the Ann Arbor School of Yoga would like to draw more students to the practice.  But what is on the horizon? Gyms that harness their members workout into power for the electrical grid? Virtual apparatus on cardio equipment? Wii-based studios?

Perhaps all of the above will catch on. Perhaps none. One thing is for sure: service is addictive. As little studios multiply, it will be those that can maintain a private, low-key and personal relationship with their members that will survive.  And much like the downtowns many of these studios call home, it is the return to community that attracts more and more clients.